Archives: Economic Growth Program Events

On June 25, 2008, the New America Foundation brought together Leo Hindery, Managing Director at InterMedia Partners and former senior economic advisor to the John Edwards Campaign, and Tom Gallagher, Senior Managing Director at International Strategy and Investment Group, to discuss the causes behind skyrocketing oil prices and their implications for American middle-class families. An MP3 audio recording can be downloaded below, while video is available at right.

On Tuesday, June 24, 2008 the New America Foundation’s Next Social Contract Initiative hosted a panel discussion with Yale Law School professor Michael Graetz; Maya MacGuineas, President of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget and Director of the Fiscal Policy Program at New America; and Michael Lind, Whitehead Senior Fellow at New America. Professor Graetz spoke on his new book, 100 Million Unnecessary Returns: A Simple, Fair, and Competitive Tax Plan for the United States.

On June 18th the New America Foundation’s Next Social Contract Initiative held a book launch for Professor Gil Troy’s latest book, Leading from the Center: Why Moderates Make the Best Presidents. Professor Troy is a history professor at McGill University and a Visiting Scholar at the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington. Frank Micciche, Deputy Director of the Next Social Contract, moderated the event. An MP3 audio recording can be downloaded below, while video is available at right.

Most discussion of the impending wave of Baby Boomers entering retirement age focuses on the capacity of entitlement programs to support them. Under-examined is the question of Boomers’ abilities to support themselves and what policy changes might be necessary to help them do so. The ongoing instability in financial markets and its effect on the assets that many Boomers have planned to tap for retirement add to the uncertainty.

**This event has been postponed until further notice. We apologize for any inconvenience.**

The yeoman tradition—in which the small property owner and the entrepreneur represent an American ideal—inspired many of the nation’s founders, Thomas Jefferson most notably. Yet today, deregulation and a lax interpretation of anti-trust law make it increasingly difficult for small businesses to even access local markets.

As the debate on the economic slowdown moves from "if" to "when" to "how long," The New School's Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis (SCEPA) and the New America Foundation will host a panel of top economists and business executives to discuss the best plan for an economic recovery.

Former John Edwards campaign senior economic advisor and telecom executive Leo Hindery understands better than most the difference between the needs of Wall Street and the needs of average Americans on Main Street. Looking at the subprime crisis as a symptom of a long history of economic mismanagement, Leo Hindery will argue that recent calls to change the regulatory bureaucracy in Washington are at best a band-aid.

Phillip Longman began by framing the core question of the event: are we in a transformative political moment, and what would that mean? Even after a decade of debilitating partisanship, Rovian strategists and Netroots bloggers continue to exacerbate political polarization. Yet, with the likely nominations of John McCain and Barack Obama, observers of all political stripes have sensed the prospect of a political sea-change.

The Fed just dropped the fed funds rate by 75 basis points -- the largest such move since 1984. No matter what the issues were yesterday, it is clear that the economy -- domestic and global -- is what will be the biggest political issue today and tomorrow... at least for a while. So for this New America event, our Economic Growth Program and Next Social Contract Initiative brought together economic policy advisors to the various political campaigns.

Despite the sustained economic growth of recent years, Americans are increasingly concerned with economic security. Even before economists began reporting signs of recession, skyrocketing health care costs, faltering pensions, and burgeoning inequality frayed the fabric of the American social contract. America's social contract is an evolving, complex web of legal and informal relationships between households, employers, government, and civil society that extends beyond particular federal programs.